The Oregon Faith Report - Faith News from Oregon

OSU to debate absolute morals

The Oregon State University Socratic Club will sponsor a debate on the topic, “Is There is an Absolute Basis for Morality?” on Monday, November 14, in Milam Auditorium (Milam 26) on the OSU campus at 7 p.m. The speakers are Father Lucas Laborde and Daniel Barker.

If morals and ethical values change over time and from culture to culture, is there any solid basis for determining what is right and what is wrong? What allows us to say that the values of our own age (or the ones we hold personally) are superior to those found in primitive cultures?

Is our morality merely one possible code of values among an infinite list of possibilities? Is everyone right and no one wrong? How can we know without an objective standard? Fr. Lucas Laborde will present a Christian view and Dan Baker a secular or humanist view.

Fr. Lucas Laborde was born in Argentina, where he earned his Masters degree in Philosophy at the Universidad del Norte Santo Tomas de Aquino in 2000. He studied Theology at San Carolos Borromeo Seminary in Rosarios, Argentina, and was ordained to the priesthood in 2005. For five years he served as Campus Minister at the OSU Newman Center in Corvallis. He is a member of the St. John Society, which is dedicated to working among students, professionals, and the poor. He currently serves as director of the Portland State University Newman Center and as pastor of St. Patrick Church in Portland.

Dan Barker is co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a national organization of atheists and agnostics working to keep state and church separate. He is co-host of the national radio show, Freethought Radio, with his wife Annie Laurie Gaylor. He regularly travels the world lecturing, performing concerts, and participating in debates with theists. A former minister who preached for 19 years, Dan gave up his faith in 1983. He is author of Godless: How An Evangelical Preacher Became One of America’s Leading Atheists (2008) and The Good Atheist: Living A Purpose-Filled Life Without God (2011). This will be his second appearance at the OSU Socratic Club.

The OSU Socratic is celebrating its tenth anniversary as a student organization at Oregon State. It sponsors 5-6 debates each year on subjects at the intersection of the Christian faith and contemporary culture. All debates are filmed and many of them are available on You Tube. See http://www.youtube.com/user/orstsocraticclub